an investigation of archwings in railjack missions

[SDGDen]

so i've went through the trouble of testing all 4 archwings in railjack mode, and there are uh... some issues.

starting with overall: archwing survivability is low across the board, and they do not seem to be designed to deal with the railjack enemies. in mid to high level missions, archwings can easily get oneshot.

for the amesha:

the 1 is almost mandatory, as stated above. which naturally means you will need your 4 once in a while too to regenerate energy. the 2 requires you to stay sort of still which is a problem for dogfights, and the 3 is too expensive for what it does, also, the 2 doesnt heal the railjack or protect it.

for the odanata:

the 1 is useful to keep you alive, the 2 gets ignored and is thus useless, the 3 misses too often and when it hits it deals damage so low you were better off just using a gun. and the 4 again has the issue of being way too underwhelming for its cost.

for the itzal:

the 1 is... actually really good, maybe a bit too good. you can throw enemies so far with it they're out of the fight for a decent little while. the 3 is useless though, same for the 2 as standing still kind of stops you from being effective, and while the 4 should be good, its currently broken, the drones do not follow you, and their damage again is too low to matter.

and then for the cherry on top, the elytron, the poor poor elytron:

its 3 and 4 deal so little damage they're useless, the 2 gets ignored and the 1 cannot be aimed at all, overall the elytron is the worst choice for railjack.

part of the issue with this is that the railjack and the enemies for the railjack are balanced against eachother, but they do not feel like they're balanced against the existing archwings, so i'd like to see a buff to archwings (especially the elytron, that poor thing) so they can at least compete with the enemies.

 

now the worst part? these tests have been conducted in the rian belt, on earth. against level 6 to 9 fighters. not even high level and archwing abilities already feel underpowered and/or useless completely. 

i do really like the gamemode, but currently the only valid archwing loadout is amesha with either the velocitus or imperator vandal. and thats kind of a shame.

speaking of the velocitus and the imperator... archguns! their projectile speed is too slow. and even at mid-game (think beginning of saturn) they start to struggle with builds that used to work completely fine through all archwing missions before update 27, my velocitus takes more shots to kill a level 24 fighter than it does to kill the jordas golem. again, the railjack and railjack enemies feel balanced against eachother, but not against the pre-existing archwings and their guns. 

 

TLDR: archwings and their guns feel unnaturally weak against railjack enemies, and should possibly be buffed. 

if anyone here has access to the veil proximia already, please share your experience with using archwings in high-level railjack missions. i only have up to saturn so i havent been able to test above mid-level. 

[kyori]

10 minutes ago, SupremeDutchGamer said:

they do not seem to be designed to deal with the railjack enemies

That is very true because archwings are old content designed that many years ago, so it is natural that they can't really match new content.

So all of them need some buff.. but the only thing people worried is "DE: you like this gear? ok we will nerf it".

[Chewarette]

Amesha is great though. Her 4 should be up at all times as it is also a buff (to you and your allies), her 3 is insanely powerful, and you have to correctly juggle with your 1 and 4 to regenerate energy to maintain your 3. That's a satisfying gameplay imo (well, more satisfying than a big part of the game 😛 ).

Edited December 17, 2019 by Chewarette

[Chewarette]

27 minutes ago, slotschii said:

the issue is that all other archwings are basically unuseable because they're way too squishy.

I didn't tried them but I guess. Makes sense for Itzal which is supposed to be the Stealth Archwing.

I hope they will buff the other Archwings instead of nerfing Amesha to the ground.

Elytron could be that Tanky or DPS Archwing, with Itzal for Stealth, Amesha support and Odonata Jack of all Trades. For the last role (Tanky or DPS depending on Elytron), they could create a 5th Archwing. Or entirely get rid of Itzal's Stealth (does anyone ever use it this way ?) and make it the Tanky Archwing.

Edited December 17, 2019 by Chewarette

[SDGDen]

2 minutes ago, Chewarette said:

I didn't tried them but I guess. Makes sense for Itzal which is supposed to be the Stealth Archwing.

I hope they will buff the other Archwings instead of nerfing Amesha to the ground.

Elytron could be that Tanky or DPS Archwing, with Itzal for Stealth, Amesha support and Odonata Jack of all Trades. For the last role (Tanky or DPS depending on Elytron), they could create a 5th Archwing. Or entirely get rid of Itzal's Stealth (does anyone ever use it this way ?) and make it the Tanky Archwing.

i mean, if they nerf amesha, archwing in railjack is useless outside of after-mission farming. and even amesha needs buffs as it cant survive without its 1 up at all times. 

[Chewarette]

26 minutes ago, SupremeDutchGamer said:

i mean, if they nerf amesha, archwing in railjack is useless outside of after-mission farming. and even amesha needs buffs as it cant survive without its 1 up at all times. 

Yup but you're kinda supposed to have your 1 up at all times, except when replenishing energy (for which you only need to be hit once, usually). Amesha's squishy but it needs to, it has tons of way to sustain.

I think it will be more bearable with Engineering R8.

Quote

Vigilant Archwing: Increase Archwing defense. Health +30%, Shield +30%, and Armor +30%.

 

[Benour]

Literally only Amesha feels like it belongs to RJ missions, every other AW feels subpar or simply bad.

Also Amesha is actually fun to use cause you have to jiggle between 1 and 4 to keep your 3 up nonstop. It has some mechanics behind it and i like that alot.

[Klaleara]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

Yup but you're kinda supposed to have your 1 up at all times, except when replenishing energy (for which you only need to be hit once, usually). Amesha's squishy but it needs to, it has tons of way to sustain.

I think it will be more bearable with Engineering R8.

 

Might be better for Amesha, but +30% at best, is going to prevent you from getting 1 shot, and instead the 2nd shot that is less than a millisecond behind the first one is going to get you.  

[NoLazyShadow]

Here's the thing: archwings and their weapons should have resived a rework with Railjack along side with modual archwing..but I guess we'll get in in phase 3

[nslay]

4 hours ago, SupremeDutchGamer said:

and the 4 again has the issue of being way too underwhelming for its cost.

Press 4 to instantly disable one or more ships for 14 seconds in a 200m radius is underwhelming? Indeed it looks underwhelming because the ships still have old Archwing inertia features... but they do stop eventually. I use it to disable dangerous and tanky mine ships that I can gun down effortlessly.

[MysticDragonMage]

everyone had the idea that railjack was going to save archwing somehow. in truth, its just another way to include archwing within new content. just like open worlds, kuva fortress, and sharkwing.

if you are looking for more archwing power, rank 8 in all intrinsics buffs archwings stats.

rank 8 in tactical decreases blink cooldown by 20%

rank 8 in pilot increases speed by 20%

rank 8 in gunnery increases damage by 25% as well as increases ability strength, range, and efficiency by 20%.

rank 8 in engineering increases health, armor, and shield by 30%

 

still, i think the main focus is the railjack gameplay. admittedly, everyone would be outside on their archwing if it had the same power as the railjack.

[SDGDen]

3 hours ago, nslay said:

Press 4 to instantly disable one or more ships for 14 seconds in a 200m radius is underwhelming? Indeed it looks underwhelming because the ships still have old Archwing inertia features... but they do stop eventually. I use it to disable dangerous and tanky mine ships that I can gun down effortlessly.

i havent seen it "disable" anything, its just a small knockback. dunno if thats a bug or my build.

[nslay]

3 minutes ago, SupremeDutchGamer said:

i havent seen it "disable" anything, its just a small knockback. dunno if thats a bug or my build.

I thought that too and someone corrected me (I have an Odonata feedback thread). I had another look and it really does disable ships. Have another look!

The knockback and damage are pitiful though! But the disable is pretty handy for some dangerous ships (the mine layer ship!). I didn't try it on crewships yet! But their fire bypasses Energy Shell so it's hard to get near them to use Repel anyway. Besides, if you're that close, you can just board them and trash the ship.

[diaversai]

I have engineering 8. It's still very easy to get 1 shot.

 

My experience in Railjack is:

Amesha:

1. Required or you get one shot
2. I don't really use it unless I mess up on pressing 1 fast enough and if I missed that I probably died.
3. Required or you can't hit anything
4. Boosts everything so it's great. 
The gameplay structure for me is press 4, get hit once (and hope you don't get one shot), keep 1 and 3 up. If you run low on energy, let one decay and repeat. I really enjoy the risk vs reward and having to pay attention to all your buffs, because if you ever mess up you die. But if you don't mess up, you're amazing.
 

Iztal:

1. Never used it, except for movement and in that case you're not usually close enough to anything for it to work.
2. I get hit through stealth a lot. Getting hit = death, so...I wish the stealth were better somehow
3. With the augment, 3 just stops mobs from moving AND loots. It's the best, but it's also expensive so you can't really chain it.
4. Itzal has a 4?
I usually blinked around while invis and used 3 when I got close to a mob then shot it while it was frozen. I have Kinetic Diversion so getting hit becomes energy and that's okay, but it's just not tanky enough, especially without a way to heal. I'd fight until I was low on health and then heal up in the Railjack. Doesn't feel great honestly. Archwings should probably have some sort of passive health regen or mobs should drop health/energy orbs all the time. 

Haven't tried the other two.